Aug. 31, 2025
Where are new riders?
In this episode of the Throttle and Roast podcast, host Niels Meersschaert asks where are new riders? He highlights the growing median age of motorcyclists and explores key factors contributing to this trend, including fear of accidents and concerns about weather conditions. Niels emphasizes the importance of training and proper safety gear in mitigating risks and making motorcycling more accessible. The conversation seeks to understand why potential new riders are hesitant and offers insights on how to encourage more individuals to embrace the joys of motorcycle riding.
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00:00 - Introduction
01:34 - Fear
04:00 - Weather
07:42 - Licensing requirements
13:03 - Manual transmissions
17:32 - Digital native vs motorhead
21:09 - Social mores
24:27 - Cost
30:46 - Wrap up
WEBVTT
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If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together Welcome to the Throttle and Roast podcast. I'm your host, Niels Meersschaert. In today's episode, we'll look at what keeps new riders from becoming motorcyclists and perhaps some ways to address that. Here in the U. S., the 70s to 80s was a huge boom time with over a million motorcycles sold each year. Unfortunately, we had a massive dip in new bike sales in the 90s, and then we had nearly as high a spike in the early 2000s of more unit sales, getting close to that million units a year. But here in the U.
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S., motorcycle riding has been in a downturn nearly 20 years following the 2008 financial crisis. We've typically seen maybe 400 to 500,000 sales per year. But perhaps the biggest indication that new riders aren't coming into motorcycling is that the median age of motorcyclists in the U. S. is now 50 years old. Well, back in 1990, it was 32. So new riders, and in particular younger riders, haven't been getting into riding in recent years. Rather, the volume of sales today is mostly replacement bikes for the same riders from years ago. And eventually, we all age out of riding. So why are new riders not starting to ride?
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So I'll start with probably the more obvious one, which is probably fear. The reality is that a lot of people will look at motorcycling and say, oh, you know, if I get into an accident, you know, I could get a bad injury, I could be killed. And this is a valid concern that a lot of people will have about taking on a new activity. You could replace motorcycling with, you know, hang gliding or parachuting, any sort sporting activity, and the same sort of risk of injury or death would be part of that. But why is it that motorcycling seems to be holding us back? And, you know, we do need to acknowledge that there is a greater risk of riding a motorcycle than sitting at home and playing a video game. And just there, that is just the true reality of it. But there are plenty of ways in which you can mitigate that risk. And life is always full of risk, you're never going to completely eliminate risk. One of the things and you've heard me probably say this many times on this podcast, I'm a big fan of getting training for riding. The more that you have knowledge about what to do in certain situations, or you've been able to practice emergency maneuvers, you've been able to practice what the bike performs at under different conditions or different surfaces, the better that you are able to handle that situation when it comes to you in an unexpected manner. So training to me is one of the most important aspects of how to reduce that fear and effectively reduce the risk of getting into an accident and getting in any sort of an injury. The second thing, and this has to be paired with it, we've talked about some options for safety gear in the past, but safety gear really is the best single-handed way that you can reduce the likelihood of injuries or death. A good helmet, abrasion resistant gear, airbag vests, pants, and even pants, pants that is, can help reduce or even eliminate injuries in a crash. So if you wear the proper safety gear, a lot of the fear that I think some new riders or potential new riders have in their head would go away. And we could encourage more riders or more people to become riders if we emphasize some of the ways to mitigate some of the risks of these fears that they legitimately do have.
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Now another concern that some people will have when they think of motorcycle riding is really in regards to the weather.
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we talked about this in a recent episode where I said it's, Oh, it's too, whatever to ride. And this is probably a large part of why some people say, Oh, I don't want to ride. They're used to maybe being enclosed in a car.
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They know they can go for a drive, whether it's snowing, whether it's raining, whether it's hot, whether it's cold. And the worry is that on a motorcycle, you don't have that protection from the elements.
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And this is true. This is definitely an aspect of it. in some ways, I think this is the draw for some people with a motorcycle is that you are out in the elements, you are out in the environment, you are experiencing the place through which you are traveling. In its entirety, you're seeing the smells of that cut grass from a field that you just passed your experience in temperature variation as you come down by a river and all of the sudden, the temperature drops, because you get the cooling effect of the water. but there are ways to mitigate some of these conditions. So certainly, you know, one of the biggest ones would be using something like a cooling vest.
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When it's really hot out, it can help dramatically. Now if it's hot and muggy, quite honestly, that's not going to do much of anything. And that's sort of what we highlighted in that it's too whatever episode. But if it's just a dry heat, the cooling vest actually can help dramatically in terms of reducing that temperature or at least the apparent temperature by a good 10 to 15 degrees Fahrenheit. The other thing is if you're going out into wet conditions, you can use Gore-Tex gear, you can a way to keep you sort of waterproof in there. If you want to have separate rain gear, you can do that as well. I do find that that tends to make it feel a little bit more because it's not breathing as well. The other one that I would say is if you're riding in cooler temperatures, heated gear, even if it's just heated grips on the bike, as I'm recording this in the tail end of August, we are starting to get a little bit of a temperature drop, which is a nice juxtaposition to where it was just like a week ago when it was 90 plus degrees Fahrenheit It's now in the early morning the upper 50s to low 60s, which is a cooler temperature.
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And you may want to have that heated grip just to keep your hands a little bit warmer as you were riding in those cooler temperatures Of course, you can add full heated gear for as the temperature gets even lower. As I've talked about in previous episodes, I've ridden as low as three degrees Fahrenheit, which is whatever minus 10 minus 15 Celsius. So quite cold but heated gear can really make that difference. So I think if we're able to encourage potential new riders that there gear that can offset some of these concerns about the weather. that now if you're in more temperate climate, let's say like California, one of the reasons why it has huge number of motorcycle is a huge number of riding days is because the weather is pretty much the same nearly every single day. It doesn't rain all that frequently, certainly in Southern California, Northern California a little different. But, you don't have some of the variation that you have, even, you know, I think winter there maybe gets into the fifties to sixties. So, there's not a lot of temperature variation either. So, And if you're in an area like where I am in the northeast, you are not going to have that sort always consistent temperature, always consistent weather. So we have to kind of deal with it a little bit more, but I think if we can encourage potential riders that there are solutions for this, it's a way that we can, we can take that concern out of the equation.
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Now, another one, and this is going to vary depending upon your specific jurisdiction, but licensing requirements for a motorcycle can be, to put it bluntly, in some cases, where I am in New York, we need to have a regular driver's license and access to both a car and a motorcycle to take your driver's test. the access to the motorcycle and the car, the idea is that you also have a friend who already has a motorcycle license. They would ride the motorcycle to the testing place.
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You would drive the car. Then the evaluator would get into the car with your friend. who now is going to drive the car and you are going to get onto the bike, and then through a couple of signals, they will tell you what you have to do to run through the test.
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So, just from a practical perspective, that's a real pain and a challenge for how you're able to get this. And in Europe, of course, they tend to have graduated licensing, which I think there's some pros for it that I'll say. There's definitely some negatives as well, but the pros are that you don't kind of get a brand new rider jumping onto a 200 horsepower sport bike. in many of the jurisdictions in Europe, you also have a requirement that you have to have official training. You have to have, you know, paying for this large course. And that can be a significant outlay of cash that makes it also an economic barrier for people wanting to ride. And then when you add in some of the other things that come into motorcycling here in New York state, we have to renew the registration of the motorcycle every single year, whereas for cars, it's biannual.
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We have to get the motorcycle inspected every single year And the reality is most shops just they don't want to do it. It's six bucks that they get from that. And part of that has to go to the state as well. So they really are disincentivized to even want to do the inspection.
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So, different jurisdictions just put up a huge number of barriers for why someone would want to get into motorcycling. this one's probably a little bit more of ensuring that you as a motorcyclist are active in a lot of the lobbying groups that are out there that are supporting it.
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the US we have the American Motorcyclist Association, which does try to lobby on our behalf to both state level and federal level. And you could even lobby your own local political leaders to help really sort of change the situation, make some of the licensing and registration and inspection situations just a little bit less onerous. And the other thing that I would say is we really want to try to make it where there's a lot of low cost bike options for new riders that are available. This is where I think the graduated licensing can be positive because by virtue of having that it actually creates market because you do need to have a smaller capacity smaller bike because you can't go immediately to that big bike. So, there is more of a market so manufacturers actually produce bikes in those smaller capacity that are a little bit better for early stage riders.
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if we can ensure that we make sure that you have those low cost bikes available for new riders it's going to help. that I'll say is really we want to try to encourage our political leaders to try to make some of these training a little bit more affordable. And there's two ways I think that that can be done.
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Number one is if you need to bring your own motorcycle to a training class. but you don't have a motorcycle license, you can start to think about, well, what is the logistics of that mean? I now have to trailer the bike to my class. I had to have bought a bike, even though I not even had any sort of riding on it. Do I even know if I want to do this? You're just creating a barrier. the more that you have a training class where there are motorcycles provided by the class, this is an advantage.
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When I was first getting my license, that was actually what we had at one of the Motorcycle Safety Foundation classes. They had bikes for the class that were very low capacity in terms of engine capacity and just not very intimidating for new riders.
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and I think the course that I took for it, I think was maybe 150, $200 back then. Maybe, I don't exactly remember, but it was not a huge expenditure by any means. at the end of that, I was able to basically take my learner's permit and the course completion, and then turn that in to get a license. So I was able to eliminate that frustration of having to provide both a motorcycle and a car that we had, typically if you don't do the MSF, uh, exclusion. So there are some States like my own where they do make this a little bit easier, but the more that we can encourage that and not just encourage that it's available, but also make sure that they are available within a reasonable range. So when I took mine, I had to travel all the way upstate to Ulster a couple hours drive to get to where that facility was that I could do my, the class. And that's not necessarily practical for everyone to be able to do. So the more that you have it in your local area, the more likely that other riders will be open to trying and, and doing it. Now, another barrier, I think that we have for new riders, and this may feel a little bit sort of US oriented, so I'll apologize in advance for that, but fewer people today know how to operate a manual transmission. If you think of in the regular car, three pedal cars are becoming like dinosaurs.
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You know, you come across old examples of them all the time, but in the U S it's only about 1% of new car sales that have manual transmissions. In fact, the number of cars that you even have the option to get a manual transmission is becoming fewer and fewer and fewer. much of the younger generation, they have no experience with a clutch or shifting gears. And if we look towards electric cars, this is just continuing this trend, the really, the only thing that people know is they know park, reverse and drive. That's it.
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Don't really deal with anything else. And so when you're trying to get into a motorcycle and you start thinking of, wait, I got to have my left hand is now operating a clutch. I've got my left foot is now changing gears.
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Like, and I've got the throttle and I've got the break. Like it's just, it can feel very overwhelming to people and they just like, I don't want to even deal with it. while those of us who enjoy manual transmissions, both in cars and in motorcycles might sort of scoff at that a little bit, it we have to be aware of what everyone else's experiences. what I do see that's happening in the market and this I think is a positive thing, at least making it an option for people, because I think it does open up the world, is things like DCT. So this is the dual clutch transmission.
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You see a lot of the newer bikes are actually offering this. I Honda was pretty much one of the earliest ones to do this. but if, essentially, there's no clutch lever anymore. The bike will essentially shift gears and handle the clutch duties at low speed automatically for you. If you're in a scooter, the same thing. It has a CVT. It's going to have a centrifugal clutch.
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There's no need to actually have a clutch lever anymore. this can act in sort of two modes. It can act as a fully bike where it will shift gears on its own, or you can still have where you manually shift the gears, but you don't have to manage a clutch. both of those options do make it a little bit more approachable to people who don't have experience with a manual transmission. So I think this is this is a positive thing that we have. I think another way that we can help with getting new riders, there is a bit of a machismo sort of stigma attached to scooters, certainly here in the u. s. Where it's like if you're not riding a giant engine harley you're you're nothing.
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And I think that doesn't encourage new riders because that may feel a little intimidating to get started on.
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If you've been riding 20 30 years Big bike, not a big but if you're just starting out, it can feel incredibly intimidating.
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And especially if you're a smaller statured person, the weight of that bike can feel really intimidating. So, I think if we make it such that scooters don't feel so negative of a connotation, it could open up more people to begin riding and maybe they start on the scooter and eventually they grow into another type of a bike, but you've made it that they can get out on a motorized two-wheel vehicle in a much easier way.
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And one small thing that you can do in most of the world, we actually will wave at other motorcyclists as we see them on the road. It's just a bit of a recognition of the camaraderie that we share. But I do notice a lot of times is that most riders will be almost snobs in a sense.
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They will avoid giving a salute to someone who's maybe on the wrong kind of bike. And the ones that I see the most commonly excluded from any sort of acknowledgement whatsoever are those who are on scooters. And the reality is they're out on two wheels, just as you are. So just even that little thing of acknowledging them and then maybe another car is driving by with someone who might think of getting to be a rider sees. Oh, you're still recognizing that scooter rider can go a long way towards making it feel more approachable that they could do this. And again, this is really about for those drivers or potential riders who just have no experience with a manual transmission. And we're just trying to make it where there's more options for them to give that sort of possibility.
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Now, another one is and this is probably more of a generational divide in some ways, is the digital native versus the motor heads. There are some arguments that younger generations have a tremendous focus on digital tools and maybe even perhaps instant gratification. And that keeps them from wanting to deal with the mechanical elements that are part of motorcycling or even spending the time to develop the skills to be good at riding. If they can't get it immediately, they just give up. And this is a little bit harder because it's more of a cultural norm. But the thing I'd say is like most things in life, there's often a rebound where people want a return to maybe something nostalgic or even retro. You're actually starting to see this here in the United States is vinyl is becoming popular again.
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People want to go back to vinyl records. And it's almost a reaction to the fully, you know, no one buys CDs really anymore.
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You're buying everything as a digital file or you're streaming it. So throwback to the original album is that recognition of that something is lost when you only have a digital recording.
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Recreation of it. Something is lost in when the only driving or riding that you do in the world is virtualized in a simulation.
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You don't have that full body experience. You're not smelling the environment through which you're riding. You're not having the vibration of that motorcycle shaking below you. So the digital is a little bit more of a challenge. But I think this is where we need to play into that movement towards more of that retro, that movement towards people are starting to say that they want a real experience. And you're seeing this in a few different things. People are now starting to say that they want a more shop local. A lot of the, know, digital stores like the Amazons of the world have sort of decimated. I'll say the small shops, the small mom and pop shops that might've been local to you. And there's definitely a concerted effort where people will say, I want that. I want that local sense of community.
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this is perhaps an area where we can really emphasize this and talk about the real experience simulation, but also the social opportunities. One of the greatest things about motorcycling is that it is, although you do the activity individually as a rider on your own bike, unless you have someone running riding two up with you. but then when you come to a meeting point of some sort, there is a community. I regularly attend and breakfast is what it's called. And it's really sort of a focus on old motorcycles. So you'll see a lot of classic bikes, 30, 40, 50 years old, or even more that are coming together and people are admiring these bikes. They're coming together, they're talking.
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And that sense of community is a, a big draw. And the beauty of this is because of where it's located is in an environment where other people can come and see that it can encourage them to see, Hey, wow, this is another activity where I could come together and see other riders and enjoy looking at some of their bikes and learning about them. So the more that we can have these activities that make possible or visible in the real world actually can help. I think sort of separate this divide of that digital native versus the motorhead. The other one I want to talk about that can hold back someone from becoming a new rider is really., I'll categorize these as social mores.
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I'll sort of divide them into sort of two categories. There's the family objections where someone will say, you know, in your family that they'll say, Oh no, you shouldn't ride. It's too dangerous. There's too, uh, you know, the, all the negatives that we just went through, you oftentimes have peer pressure.
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That's pushing away from riding a motorcycle for whatever reasons that the people are, are saying this. And in probably nine times out of 10, the people who are actively dissuading someone from becoming a motorcyclist are themselves not motorcyclists. So they don't know what we know as riders.
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that makes it almost a little, uh, I'll say preachy in a sense, because you haven't actually experienced it to know the good or the bad or whatever. And so it's, it's a little bit of a, of a problem on there. The second is you'll sometimes see this happen with responsibilities.
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And so if you've just become a parent, they may say, Oh, well now you have responsibilities.
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So you can't ride. I see stories all the time of someone who's now a returning rider who rode when they were younger, stopped when they had kids, and then now has started riding again, that the kids are out of the house.
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the responsibilities does play a role and unfortunately it can actually make you miss out on riding for a long period of time.
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So there there's this aspect.
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Now the problem with this one, and I don't really have a great solution for it. So maybe, maybe one of our listeners actually has some good ideas, but this is a little bit more of a, a personal issue. So for example, my father-in-law, uh, had a cousin who was killed in a motorcycle accident. So I've heard many, many times throughout the years of objections and saying, Oh, you shouldn't ride. It's too dangerous. You know, you have kids now, et cetera. there's going to be pressures that come from your family and your personal situation that will make it perhaps even harder for one to want to become a motorcyclist or continue being a motorcyclist, which is another aspect. there are some ways though, I think that you can address those. So for example, some riders, especially if they're parents, they can address this by having more life insurance. So if the concern is, well, you'll leave your kids and then you won't be a breadwinner for them, whatever. Well, having some life insurance might make your partner be a little bit more comfortable with the real thing is, this is, I think more than anything else, it's about having an honest and frank conversation. It could also be saying, Hey, you know, I'm going to get more training. I'm going to make sure that I'm riding with proper safety gear. There's ways that you can, soften the worry of those who care about you or family, et cetera, to make it where it's not feeling so reckless. I think is really probably what most people think of riding as, might say the same thing about skydiving, but ultimately if it's an activity that brings you joy, and you can still do it in a reasonably safe manner, I don't see a whole lot of harm in it. Yes, it's risky, but walking across the street, you know, when you're going to work, You could get hit by another car. So life is full of risk. If you don't embrace it, you're never going to really fully love your life. The last one that I want to talk about is cost. And I've talked about in some previous episodes how bikes have had the impression of getting more expensive. And in some cases that's actually factually correct. If you look at today, the average price of a Harley Davidson motorcycle is $30, 000, yet the median income in the United States is just $40, 000.
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So you pretty much would have to nine months of income just to cover the cost of the bike. And of course that's not including your taxes and stuff. So it's a, it's a very long cycle to be able to save up enough money to buy that bike that you want. And I think this is the other thing that's hurting it is as the average price of a Harley Davidson has gone up in price and we have almost the stigma attached with riding a smaller bike or a non Harley bike or a scooter. We've created a artificial barrier towards someone becoming a new rider because we're like, oh, you can only buy this big Harley for $30, 000. There's no other options.
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And that really does limit our realistic way in which we can get people to consider this. the other thing I'll say that. And the other thing I'll say that is a little different. If we think back to the seventies and eighties was really the heyday here in the United States, where we had the highest peak of motorcycle sales pretty much every single year of over a million units per year. A lot of the things that are common for a lot of people today were not something that you had back then.
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So there's other draws for our dollar or our, our share of wallet, if you will.
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So things like internet access and cell phones, your daily Starbucks and more. All of that is putting constraints onto your budget and leaving less and less money available if you wanted spend on buying a bike and riding a bike. there are some cost aspects here. Now, I think the thing is that not every single rider needs a top tier bike or even that full size bike.
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As I mentioned, I think we need to really remove the stigma of a smaller bike because that will then make it more tenable to buy a bike here in the United States.
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So, if you could buy a, if you buy a really small bike, let's say like you could buy like the, the Honda Navi for example is about $2, 000 or you could buy something like maybe a 400 CC bike for about four or $5, 000.
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That's a much more tenable amount to spend than having to require you to spend $30, 000 on a Harley Davidson, for example.
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So I think this moving goal line, if you will, to not say that it has to be this giant, giant bike.
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In fact, you know, I recently replaced my big ADV bike with a midsize bike and the advantage of it was actually at least for me. It was not only cheaper for me to buy a mid-size adventure bike than a full size adventure bike, but it was also a better fit for my needs. I had a bike that had the same power as my old bike did, but it was 80 pounds lighter, so it was more fun in the twisties. It was more fun off-road. So we've had this sort of growing of so many bikes and they just keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger and more and more power. And if we think back to that seventies and eighties, a large motorcycle then was about a 750 CC engine.
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It's what today we would consider a mid-sized bike, which is sort of a weird idea that we've just really grown so much that the large ones back then were now mid-sized. The other thing is the power capability of these bikes has just grown and grown and grown. my old R75/5, which was a 1972 model, right in that heyday of the peak of when motorcycling was selling a lot, that bike brand new was 50 horsepower out of a 750 CC engine. Now, slightly bigger, mind you, but my 900 F900GS puts out 105 horsepower. So it puts out double the horsepower with slightly more capacity. So the power that we have in modern bikes, even for the same CC is dramatic, so there really isn't as much need to have this giant, giant engine.
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We really can get much better with a smaller engine and still have the same performance as we did in the 70s and 80s. So I think we can remove the stigma that would go a huge, huge way towards encouraging new riders.
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And so we want to make sure that we have these more economical models that are out there and.
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They're going to fit them for that long time, because I said like the power output of these bikes. The power output of these Far greater than what you had in the seventies and eighties when we're in the heyday of it. So they've got plenty of power.
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They don't necessarily need to grow. Now, if you're in Europe and you have the graduated licensing, of course, you're getting into a, not just a capacity restriction, but more of a power restriction. So you may still have where you're limited to, let's say 50 horsepower or less, and maybe that's your first bike. And then you can graduate into something that has a little bit more power.
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But if we eliminate the stigma, I think this just becomes a little bit more practical. And there's an old adage in motorcycling. It's more fun to ride a slow bike fast than a fast bike slow. And this was, I took it really to heart. That's part of why I got rid of my old sport bike. It was a great bike.
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It was so quick, amazing. But the number of times that I held full throttle for more than a on a public road, I could count on pretty much one hand in a decade of owning that bike. It's just, it's so quick. You're at extra legal speed so quickly, you then have to come off the throttle.
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So you're never really using full throttle for all that long.
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Whereas on a slower bike or a less powerful bike, let's you can actually use it much more.
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It's kind of much more fun. This is why so many people talk about the Mazda Miata as being such a sports car. It doesn't have a lot of power, but it's lightweight and it's fun. And you get to be pushing it much more than you would with a more powerful car. So I think this is where we can really help with cost as well and make it a bit more tenable to people.
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So we covered how some potential riders may be put off by some of the environmental issues, like being more exposed both to other vehicles, but also weather. We talked about some of the fear factors that could also be causing them to not even consider riding. And we also covered how licensing requirements have gotten harder, but also that most drivers have never operated a manual transmission. And seeing all these bikes that have a clutch lever and a gear shift might be intimidating for them. they also looked at the cultural move towards more digital experiences rather than real world could also be a factor. And some of the mores like family obligations or pressure in a negative peer pressure way to say, don't ride a motorcycle And finally, we looked at cost, which could be a real financial hurdle for people who are thinking of getting into motorcycling. And while much of this can almost seem insurmountable, there are plenty of ways in which you can address many of these issues. So my question for you is, what have you personally done to encourage new riders? Share your thoughts through the text to show link in the show notes or leave a voicemail at throttleandroast.com slash voicemail. Thanks for listening.
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I'll talk to you next week.
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